


a love song for the cliffhanger boys

by ilgaksu



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 18:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7116952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilgaksu/pseuds/ilgaksu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days, you work with what you got.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a love song for the cliffhanger boys

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clockworkmoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworkmoon/gifts).



Some days, you work with what you got. Some nights, you tell yourself you can breathe through it. You tell yourself you only have to live through the next thirty seconds, and you count them down. The ceiling is a miasma, the floor is waiting to swallow you whole, the air is seething and you are going to die if you stay here. You have twenty seconds left. You’re following the hands of an invisible clock in your head, and the flashing of the late-night traffic outside the house screams across the carpet. Light is not a saviour; light means there is nowhere to hide; when you open your eyes against it one more time, his eyes are open and glinting opaque as a doll’s.

He says _breathe through it_. You’re trying to. Fuck it, but you’re always trying to. You only have to live for ten seconds now. You count down to five as he watches your face with minute concentration. You’re not sure how awake he is. You’re not sure what time it actually is. You have two seconds left. You have the element of surprise. If you ran for the door now, you’d have a head start. The dark is slowly resolving itself into your friend. You aren’t sure he can see as well in it as you. One second left.

And then you look at him beside you. You think of the cut of keys in your palm and how there were easier ways to die alone but it was a limited time only, how you missed your time slot and absurdly, whether he’ll remember to feed the cats. You take a breath in.

And in your head, you reset the clock.

*

The next day, Andrew clearly notices the towel thrown over the bathroom mirror and raises his eyebrows at Neil when he walks into the kitchen.

“You need to shave,” Andrew says. Neil, back from his run and wiping his face on his shirt, doesn’t ask if he remembers last night: Andrew always remembers. One time, in the middle of a tense stand-off in Neil’s senior year, Neil, homesick for Andrew, had said I wish you’d stop remembering everything and Andrew had just looked at him boredly and said welcome to the club. So do I.

“I don’t need to do anything,” Neil says. Andrew looks at him for a long, unimpressed moment.  The new cat winds around Andrew’s ankles, crying for food. She’s too new to have been named, and she runs away when people try to touch her. Andrew had chosen her and told Neil to shut up when he smirked.

“Don’t,” Andrew says, when Neil reaches for the cat food next to the sink. “She’s lying.” He’s already fed her, then. Andrew’s hair is damp from the shower and Neil is seven years older than he ever thought he’d be. When Neil says, “Can I kiss you?” Andrew says, “Go and shave, Neil,” his voice steady as though he’s never shivered under the rasp of Neil’s stubble. He’s reading the back of the milk carton and blatantly ignoring the cat’s attempts to guilt him into feeding her again. Neil rolls his eyes and goes, feeling some wound in his chest loosen a fraction. The towel is still across the mirror and Neil makes do; he’s been given years to practice.

Neil is seven years older than he ever thought he’d be, a razor against his throat doesn’t make him think of a basement, and so he tells himself: what I can with what I have. He tells himself: count to thirty, and then start again. Reset the clock.

He tells himself about the sting of coffee too hot on his tongue, kisses that taste of ash, the cheap synthetic deodorant smell versus the familiar aftershave versus shared fabric conditioner clinging to every last thing he owns. He tells himself about a cat licking his hand for the last scraps of food, late night peanut butter ice cream, _do not go gentle into that good night_ ; he tells himself about these things, these things to live for, and he washes his hands.

When he walks out of the bathroom, Andrew is leaning against the wall in the corridor, ostensibly checking his phone, which is something that Neil would believe if it was anyone but Andrew Minyard. He just raises his eyebrows instead.

“Move,” Andrew says, scowling, “I need to piss,” and shoulders past Neil into the bathroom.

“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Neil calls after him.

“Don’t fucking say that,” Andrew says, “How many _fucking times_ , Neil,” and shuts the bathroom door in his face.

*

Most people remember the feeling of immortality when they think of being young. It’s not that Neil feels robbed, it’s not that Andrew would say if he did; it’s more that Neil and Andrew were never under any illusions about the eggshell fragility of themselves. Their chests, waiting to be caved in, had never been mistaken for armour.

Despite this, the press equate the way Neil plays Exy with the status and style of an upstart demi-god; a mongrel immortal, insolent, begging to be struck down. When he straps on his helmet, they act like he’s going to war.

(They settle for talking about Andrew like he’s some kind of Trojan horse - a last-ditch weapon that decimates the opposition until _victory_ becomes _massacre_.)

They see Neil’s recklessness and think: this boy thinks he will never die. They do not think: this boy has looked death in the eyes and is running towards it, screaming in fear. They do not think: this boy is standing still.  

Neil wipes sweat off his face; the fabric of his jersey catches on Icarus scars; Neil is seven years older than he ever thought he’d be and Neil knows better than all of them, but then hasn’t he always?

*

This is the thing: Neil made Court. Neil made Court like everyone expected him to, and Kevin Day told reporters exactly that when asked, _I have always had high expectations of Neil Josten,_ his stilted voice stitched together on the soundbite like the knitting together of bones. That is to say, the fracture lines in Kevin’s media persona are faint and barely discernable. He’d gotten into the car with Thea before anyone could press him further.

Neil made Court, like everyone expected him to, and Matt Boyd congratulated him on Twitter, and Nicky sent a string of emojis on a Snapchat of him and Erik in Berlin, Nicky throwing up a peace sign and _congratulations_ scrawled in orange. Neil made Court, like everyone expected him to, and when the press asked him how he felt, Neil said _alive._ He was more honest than he had expected to be.

Neil made Court and when he first got the news he’d bolted to the locker room showers and sat under the spray of running water without changing out, trying to fight down the nausea of relief. It took five minutes for Andrew to find him, standing in the open door of the shower stall, all in black and glaring at Neil.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Neil said through his chattering teeth.

“This is cliche.”

“Yeah, you look like the trailer for a horror movie,” Neil said around the tightness in his chest. Andrew raised his eyebrows.

“I am not the only one,” Andrew said. He leaned over Neil’s head and turned the water to hot.

“We match,” Neil said, and Andrew sighed and sat next to him in the shower, hair darkening to burnt gold under the onslaught, looking bored, until Neil felt able to switch the water off.

This is the thing: Neil made Court, and so Andrew rang Kevin and said, “Ask me again.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“You owe me,” Andrew says, and it was meant to sound like a threat, and because it was Andrew, it did. So Kevin asked him again.

“Yes,” Andrew said, quick and staccato, and then he hung up.

*

When Neil woke up the next morning, Andrew was reading something on his phone.

“Is that what I think it is,” Neil said, and Andrew dropped his phone on the bed and leaned over to kiss Neil.

“Go back to sleep,” he said, pulling away, and picked up his phone.

“So it is what I think it is.”

Andrew gave him a long, slow look.

“Go back to sleep, Neil.”

*

Let’s talk about weight for a moment. Let’s talk about the weight of years, and dreams; Andrew’s whisky-limned mouth, Andrew’s calloused hands. Let’s tell stories about how water in late-night motel rooms and Andrew’s tired eyes on the road, reflecting the streetlights like a cat’s as he drives. How for a man who always staggers back up with his fists flying on the court, for Court, Neil is felled by the pale underside of Andrew’s wrist, the batwing of a collarbone, the faint pinprick of Andrew’s freckles. Let’s hold these talismans close and call them relics: that is to say, objects of devotion, often used in exorcism, often called upon during dark nights of the soul. Let’s talk about the weight of more than one bag; let’s talk about Neil-fucking-Josten, starting striker, and how for all his travelling light, he’s always had baggage to spare.  

*

Some days, you work with what you got. Some nights, you tell yourself you can breathe through it. You tell yourself you only have to live through the next thirty seconds, and you count them down.

And he says _breathe through it_. He drags your hand against his own chest and you ground yourself using his heartbeat: you have always gotten under each other’s skin.

“I’m trying,” you say, and he nods, short and sharp, before lying down and looking at you expectantly.

He says, “I know,” and it takes you a moment to catch up, hooked as you are on his eyelashes and the knot he makes inside your ribs. He arches his eyebrows.

“Yes,” you say, and follow him down, fall into the press of his honeyed mouth.

  
It’s enough.


End file.
